Pekkonen recorded BB King’s 2001Grammy winning “Let The Good Times
Roll” with Dr. John and engineered Jimmy Smith’s January release
“Dot Com Blues” produced by John Porter.The basic band is Smith on organ,
Reggie
McBride on bass guitar, and Harvey Mason
on drums, plus an all-star guest artist list including: Etta James,
Taj Mahal, Dr. John & BB King. Rik was last seen with the king
himself – actually working on Elvis Presley’s “That’s The Way It
Is”, a documentary on the legend’s concert footage produced by Rick
Schmidlin. Rik is in the studio with producer Stewart
Levine working on Simply Red’s new release with lead singer
Mick Hucknall
and a stellar line-up including: James Gadson on drums, Freddie
Washington on bass, Joe Sample on Fender Rhodes and acoustic Piano,
Dean Parks and Arthur Adams on guitar and Larry Williams on synths.

, the new album by one of the most genuinely
exciting new faces on the jazz scene is out in October 2003 and

is already a huge hit in the UK.

More
recently, Rik was in New Orleans recording a Dr. John project with
Levine. They're doing overdubs and mixing at House of Blues Studios
in LA.Rik's
just returned after six weeks of recording Jamie Cullum's new album
in London. He starts mixing next week. The album has sold over 2
million.